SANTIAGO, Chile –Latin American and Caribbean countries have called for “driving action and advancing” towards achievement of the ageing agenda on a regional and global level.
Delegates at the Fifth Regional Intergovernmental Conference on Ageing and the Rights of Older Persons.They made the call at the Fifth Regional Intergovernmental Conference on Ageing and the Rights of Older Persons, which ended on Thursday.
Speaking at the opening ceremony the executive secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs said that Latin America and the Caribbean has “a powerful battery of instruments that are a demonstration of the commitment to implementing the Madrid International Plan of Action and that complement the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and Decade of Healthy Ageing 2021-2030.”
Salazar-Xirinachs said that 662 million people are living in the region as of 2022, with an estimated 13.4 percent or 88.6 million, aged 60 years and over.
He said by 2030, this proportion will rise to 16.5 percent of the total population, and that, by 2050, older persons will represent nine percentage points more, reaching 25.1 percent of the total population.
“The increase in the proportion of older persons, along with prolongation of the life span, entails new opportunities and challenges for societies and multiple challenges in terms of public policy,” Salazar-Xirinachs said.
“We must universalize older persons’ access to social protection and quality health services. It is also urgently necessary to focus special attention on the issue of care,” said the senior United Nations official, stressing the need to address lifelong learning, with emphasis on retraining and closing the digital divide.
“We must promote the inclusion of ageing on government agendas through legislative adaptation and modernization and by strengthening the institutions responsible for coordinating national policies that address ageing,” he said, urging as well for strengthening countries’ technical capacities with regard to the challenges entailed by the demographic change.
“Twenty years since the Madrid International Plan of Action was adopted, the challenges for its implementation in our region continue to be numerous and urgent. But our commitment to overcome them and find responses in order to leave no older person behind is resolute and enduring,” Salazar-Xirinachs said.
Chief of the Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean of the United Nations Population Fund, Jozef Maeriën, said the region is undergoing “a rapid demographic change with an accelerated ageing process,” and encouraged society and governments to prepare themselves to face the challenges of that scenario “marked by profound inequalities and limited fiscal resources.”
During the conference, Simone Cecchini, director of the Latin American and Caribbean Demographic Centre (CELADE)-Population Division of ECLAC, presented the document “Ageing in Latin America and the Caribbean: Inclusion and rights of older persons”, which constitutes the regional report for the fourth review and appraisal of the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing, 20 years after its approval.
